The Official 99th Tour de France thread, 2012.

[Stat Brother]

Are there any team instructions when it comes to the time trial?

I know Wiggins is seen as a time trial maestro but if Froome had gone after the stage today, he could have ended up 30-40 seconds closer to Wiggins. If the time trial is a just-go-for-it free-for-all then there could still have been a chance that Froome could get very close to Wiggins, if not in front of him, on Saturday.

Pretty much.
Brad in yellow will go off last, so will get time checks on everyone else, inc CF.

The team will professionally run them in 1-2, probably both gaining 2 more minutes, while matching each other.

 

[1066familyman]

I will say now there's no way Wiggins will win next year.

Will he have the heart to come back and swap roles with CF?

Yes he will. A deal is a deal I reckon. He'll go down in my estimations if he doesn't.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I'm not talking about the stage finish in terms of being naive, I have no problem with how it finished today.

I'm talking about Cav leaving Porte today rather than riding him back on. Also a few stages back when they had the chance to really break everyone and didn't, and early into this Tour when they weren't riding as far at the front of the peleton as they should have been ( they soon rectified that though thankfully).

I was agreeing with you, sorry I should have said 'This' first!

 

[Stat Brother]

Yes he will. A deal is a deal I reckon. He'll go down in my estimations if he doesn't.

Pretty much what he just said.

 

[Simster]

I will say now there's no way Wiggins will win next year.

Will he have the heart to come back and swap roles with CF?

I really hope this is how it works out. There have been just too many times when Froome has been left waiting for Wiggins to fall into his slip stream. Today was a good example, as was that other mountain stage a few days back when Froome just flew through the 2nd break away group and didn't go on to attack the stage leader because of team orders.

 

[1066familyman]

Pretty much what he just said.

Well there you go then. Sky must feel very smug knowing that everyone is knocking them but they themselves are united, have a long term vision and are VERY VERY strong

Anyone with any doubts over this just need to look at the smile on Cav's face. Water carrying in the rainbow jersey and tempo riding up climbs , no lead out train and not within a million miles of his personal amazing success last year. He knows the score though, and most cycling fans, including us lot here, do too.

 

[Stat Brother]

Well there you go then. Sky must feel very smug knowing that everyone is knocking them but they themselves are united, have a long term vision and are VERY VERY strong

Anyone with any doubts over this just need to look at the smile on Cav's face. Water carrying in the rainbow jersey and tempo riding up climbs , no lead out train and not within a million miles of his personal amazing success last year. He knows the score though, and most cycling fans, including us lot here, do too.

Yep t'is all good, BUT...


... this is now.

We all know Cav is seriously hurting right now, watching Griepel take 'his' wins.
If it were to be all for nothing, i.e no Champs Elysee & Olympic double, then all hell could break loose.

Come October when the route is published, and the enormity of the task in hand just to repay the favour, it'll be a tough call to make.

I'm sure everyone will do the right thing, but if they don't well, lets just say it's going to be interesting.

 

[perseus]

Winning margins on:

List of Tour de France general classification winners - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Closer than most but still typical, except for the years it wasn't on terrestrial TV and 1989

1992 Stage 13 when Claudio Chiappucci attacked on the first climb was the only way to make a fight of it, and nobody bloody well did.

 

[Stat Brother]

Just catching up on Twitter.

Le Tour will be on ITV1 this weekend.

And if you've not had enough of Brad after the ITV4 special @ 8pm tonight.

5-Live have one from 9:30.

 

[Stat Brother]

Stage 17 result:-

1 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 4:12:11
2 Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:00:19
3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling
4 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 0:00:22
5 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:26
6 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol Team
7 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:00:37
8 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:00:54
9 Christopher Horner (USA) RadioShack-Nissan 0:01:02
10 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin - Sharp 0:01:11

GC:-

1 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 78:28:02
2 Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:02:05
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:02:41
4 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol Team 0:05:53
5 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:08:30
6 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:09:57
7 Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) RadioShack-Nissan 0:10:11
8 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:10:17
9 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 0:11:00
10 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 0:11:46

KoM:-

1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 134 pts WINNER.
2 Fredrik Kessiakoff (Swe) Astana Pro Team 123
3 Chris Anker Sörensen (Den) Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank 77
4 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 63
5 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 51
6 Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling 48
7 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 43
8 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 40
9 Brice Feillu (Fra) Saur - Sojasun 38
10 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin - Sharp 34

 

[Stat Brother]

My Colnago riding mate can wait to see a polka dot 'nago.

I, on the other hand, can!

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Oh dear. Just seen the highlights show from today. Its getting seriously embarassing now, how much Froome is having to hold himself back to follow team orders to stop from taking top spot from Wiggins. And don't they both know it. Mind you, Froome did seem to be deliberately over-egging the cake today, with the constant backward glances as if to say 'Come on grandad, do keep up'.

 

[Stat Brother]

Oh dear. Just seen the highlights show from today. Its getting seriously embarassing now, how much Froome is having to hold himself back to follow team orders to stop from taking top spot from Wiggins. And don't they both know it. Mind you, Froome did seem to be deliberately over-egging the cake today, with the constant backward glances as if to say 'Come on grandad, do keep up'.

Oh someone's got a special friend.

Still 3 days left.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Oh someone's got a special friend.

Friend! CYCLING friend! (It's true tho eh?)

Still 3 days left.

Still 2 days left for you to say that 'days left' thing

 

[Gregory2Smith1]

like buses,wait ages ,then 2 come along at the same time

great choice of music today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO3WOp8TVtA

 

[Marxo]

The fact that Wiggins is 2 mins. ahead of Froome changes the mind set of Wiggins. He doesn't have to attack and his game plan is to follow his team mate and not to bring his position in danger. Froome could have taken some time out of Wiggins today but we don't know how much, or in the stage the other day. If Froome (hypothetically) went early he may have been reeled in and possibly blown up, none of the other protagonists dared go early for fear of losing their 'certain' classification. On the other hand attacking 'late' is not likely to get you much time won. It may be that Froome could have won this years tour but it's far from a certainty. If Wiggins does triumph on Sunday then I for one will not say he didn't deserve it and like others have said I hope he comes back next year to help Froome. Maybe without the burden of the yellow jersey Wiggins will be waving to Froome to get a move on.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

I will say now there's no way Wiggins will win next year.

Will he have the heart to come back and swap roles with CF?

This

 

[Stat Brother]

Stage 18:-

 

[Stat Brother]

This

Which bit?

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

I did well last year getting 22/1 and 16/1 on Bradley to win this years tour after he bust his collar bone.

With Contador coming back into play for the Veulta and Andy hopefully fit for 2013 tour, I thought it would be good to see what odds they are offering on Froome for next year. He would seriously need to put in some epic training especially on the descents.

However so far no ones offering anything to attract any money this far out.